


Chill

by TronKon



Series: Prolonged Exposure [1]
Category: DCU
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:50:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TronKon/pseuds/TronKon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven years ago Gotham lost one of it’s most prolific heroes, and the worst part is no one knows why or how. After all this time, the question of whatever happened to Dick Grayson remains unanswered. But then the only one still asking the question is Damian Wayne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Damian Wayne was nothing if not industrious. At the age of seventeen he held down numerous jobs, up to and including the role of one of the Wayne Heirs, honours student at one of the most prestigious prep schools in Gotham, and a rather busy nightlife as the acting Robin.   
  
As the son of Batman, he’d had to naturally prove his genes to not be defective, but it had not been as simple as he’d thought it would be when he’d arrived in Gotham at the age of ten.  Surrounded by sycophants who did not have one bit of the specialized training he’d received in the league of assassins, he’d somehow still managed to appear… less in his father’s eyes. Bruce Wayne had had more affection for an acrobat, a street thug and a liar then he’d had for his own, obviously superior son. Batman hadn’t even _wanted_   Damian working beside him. He’d refused completely- but then he’d gone missing and things had changed.   
  
The memories of how he’d gotten to where he was now were constantly with Damian. Driving him forward. The only one who had seen potential in Damian at that age had been, strangely, the first Robin. Grayson.   
  
After taking up the cowl in his father’s absence, Grayson had given Damian a  _chance_ , and Damian had stumbled but Dick Grayson, a man who by everything his mother had ever taught him should have been absolutely worthless- he had taught him things he had not known before. Damian had always been his mother’s tool. But he had been Grayson’s partner. An equal. After feeling that, Damian could never return to his mother’s conniving arms.   
  
But eventually, his Father had returned and reclaimed the cowl. Grayson had gracefully stepped back from the role of the batman and slipped back into the seemingly comfortable guise of Nightwing.   
  
And then- and then no one really knew what happened.   
  
One night Grayson’s communicator had just gone dead. All of Oracle’s expertise couldn’t track the man’s location. He just disappeared like a wisp of smoke in the air.   
  
For the first two years or so everyone had been frantic to find Grayson. They’d all concocted plans, schemes, theories about what happened to the man. But it had been fruitless. And one by one Damian had watched each give up in a way. Put Grayson’s whereabouts and the mystery of his disappearance in second place to whatever was going on in Gotham that needed their attention.   
  
As far as Damian knew, he was the only one who still devoted so much free time to the puzzle that was whatever happened to Grayson. Damian didn’t even  _have_  any ideas left to explore. He’d exhausted every avenue. Every chance. Every logical thought and quite a few illogical ones. So when his father or the other members of the bat family did not require his assistance he just searched.   
  
Today he was combing through the wrecks of one of the oldest subway tunnels in Gotham. It hadn’t been used in fifteen years or more. Through the lenses of his domino mask, Damian studied the structural integrity of the tunnel before ducking his head to enter the space. The readings looked fine, and nothing looked as if it had shifted or crumbled in quite some time. He took a few cautious steps inside and glanced around with a frown. Some of the rails were still getting power in this tunnel. An oversight on the part of Gotham electric no doubt.   
  
Walking along the rail, careful not to step on the one running piece that was still live, he was surprised to see what looked like an old trapdoor half covered in rubble. An old maintenance shaft most probably.   
  
He  _almost_ walked over it. It was a simple square of metal identical to thousands more in these tunnels. He almost lifted his feet and just kept right on going. But something gave him pause. Maybe it was the fact he was his father’s son and he couldn’t just leave anything alone without knowing for certain- but he  _was_  curious. So he crouched, lifting then twisting the handle, kicking some of the debris away and lifting the metal door. The hinges protested loudly, and the young Robin narrowed his eyes. There was a flicker- some sort of light near the bottom of the shaft. A pale blue that reminded him of the Gotham Aquarium.   
  
Damian didn’t know what it was. And he hated not knowing things.   
  
Flexing his fingers inside his gloves, he tested the first rung of the descending ladder with one rubber soled boot. It seemed solid enough to use, so after another quick scan he started down. The further he traveled however, the brighter the light he’d seen seemed to become. Squinting when he got to the bottom, he came to the realization this wasn’t a standard issue maintenance tunnel.   
  
No. It was something else entirely.   
  
The tunnel opened up to a broad room with various pieces of dusty looking equipment sluggishly working, blinking occasionally. And in the center of it all was a large cylindrical tube of some sort. It looked to be made of steel with one small darkened window near the top of it.   
  
Wondering if there was something in this little laboratory that was actually still working or operational, his feet took him in front of the device and he leaned up, narrowing his eyes as he scanned it. There was something inside. Pressing his palm to the cylinder after some hesitation he found it bitingly cold, even through the advanced latex of his gloves. Studying the patterns and symbols imprinted on the tube, he couldn’t help but think they looked terribly familiar for some reason.   
  
His father had taught him something about this he thought- and then it hit him. This looked just like the schematics of some of the cryogenic freezing chambers he’d been made to memorize when he was younger. Bruce’s approach to crime fighting was that no bit of information was ever too topical. Everything was worth knowing.   
  
At this particular moment in time- Damian was happy this was something that had been included in his education. It was a mystery that he would rather solve himself and report back on then have to ask for help with. Drake could be an insufferable pain in the ass whenever he thought himself to be in possession of anything Damian might need for even one moment.  
  
This in mind he moved back over to one of the main control panels. The software needed upgrading. It was at least seven years old. But as such it was simple for Damian to navigate as his fingers flew through the files. Some sort of secret project- encrypted but that wasn’t too difficult for Damian to get around. All he wanted to do was stop the loop- stop the program and see what it was that was in that cha-  
  
Damian stopped. One piece of information jumped out at him. The date. The date of this experiment. Dear god  _The date.  
  
_  The date whatever was in there had been put on ice was the same exact date that Dick Grayson went missing all those years ago. The date of a dead communicator and a missing hero. The date coincided quite handily with possibly the last time anyone had cracked a smile or told a joke that wasn’t absolutely filthy and vile in Wayne Manor- the date Damian had started this Mission. His Mission. Different from his father’s but a ritual no less faithfully adhered to. It was a set of numbers burned behind his eyelids, a number he responded to immediately. How couldn’t he? It was the only clue.   
  
The boy stopped, forcibly stilling his fingers and closing his eyes, telling himself to stop, even though he felt the familiar throbbing of his heart in his throat. Too many times over the years had he thought himself so close, only to find whatever he’d been certain to be evidence of one thing or another to have been circumstantial all along.   
  
But either way, just like all the other times. Damian just had to know this was another of those failures. Until it was a failure, it was a possibility and Damian just could not live with possibilities of that sort floating over his head.

So decisively, with a few keystrokes, readying himself- he ended the program, lifting his eyes to watch the chamber begin the sequences necessary to release whatever it was it held.  
  
____________  
  
Dick Grayson loved to fly. It wasn’t a secret pleasure. It was something he flaunted, twisting and launching himself off rooftops, scaffolding, balconies and intricate stonework. He barely ever even needed a grapple, though sometimes it did save time.  
  
Being Batman had been like being stuffed into a dark little prison of seriousness and control. It was only after he truly committed to the role that Dick realized why Bruce had told him not to. He couldn’t be Batman. He could only be himself.  
  
Batman was never a movement, expression, thought wasted. Dick was extravagance and over the top and extra details and flair. Dick was a circus by himself sometimes and holding that back made him miserable.  
  
It wasn’t like Batman could be caught playing on patrol. Robin could. Nightwing could.  
  
But Batman? Never.  
  
Dick had missed playing.  
  
But then it wasn’t like he could say the experience hadn’t meant anything to him. That it had been a drudging nightmare. Because that would be a lie and Dick only really tended to lie when the Mission called for it.  
  
When Dick was Batman, things had been wrong in the Cave. In the family. Not just because Bruce was gone. No, not just because of that. Bruce had been gone, and Tim had been a bit crazy- Jason had been certifiable and back and somehow alive and Damian, Damian Wayne, Damian Al Ghul- he had just been angry.  
  
Angry like Jason? Not exactly. But Dick could see what Tim seemed to miss, and that was that Damian was a child. A child with a serious case of hero worship who wanted a father that couldn’t accept him anymore, so he at least needed a piece of his life.  
  
The thing about Tim had been that Tim knew that Batman needed a Robin. But Tim, Robin Tim hadn’t actually needed a Batman in a long time now. He was a solo operation by himself. Leading the Titans, his own missions, his own busts. Tim and Bruce hadn’t even needed to communicate each other’s actions to each other all that often, in the end.  
  
Tim didn’t need to be Robin as much as Damian did. And Damian had needed it more than anything. That structure, that acceptance that no one was willing to give him.  
  
And Dick had found out after a couple false starts that Damian complimented him. They were a team. Tim and Bruce had had a partnership. Their minds worked similarly, their coping mechanisms, their styles of fighting- they were almost the same in many respects.  
  
But with Damian, Dick had almost felt transported back in time. To a time when Dick was Robin and Bruce needed something to remind him not to get in too deep. Not to be too angry, or vengeful. Not to hate too purely and forget about the good. Only this time it was Robin that needed grounding and Batman who forced him to unwind.  
  
Dick missed working with Damian like that.  
  
No, he didn’t miss being Batman, god he couldn’t miss that. But somehow, despite that, Dick still missed his Robin.  
  
Considering how often that certain Robin showed up to help take down thugs and bad guys whenever Nightwing happened to be in Gotham, like tonight, Dick could privately assume that maybe the little bird missed him too.  
  
But that was done for the evening. Damian had crept into the shadows about twenty minutes ago after a gruff voice over the com reminded him the night was not over and there were reports waiting back at the Cave.  
  
So Dick had shot the little hero a quick tight smile of thanks and made things easier by vaulting up and up and up and flying. Damian wasn’t his partner anymore and Bruce could teach him so much.  
  
Still though. He wished there was more time.  
  
Even now as he watched the night shadows start lightening- even now he wished there was more time to play.  
  
But bats didn’t come out in the daytime, and no matter what kind of identity he would take on, he’d always been and always would be a Bat. So he slinked into what was left of the shadows.  
  
He had a place in Gotham. A couple places actually, but there was a small apartment nearby that he could go to change and catch a few hours of sleep.  
  
Looking up through the lenses of his domino, he tensed his legs and propelled himself up, images of a warm soft bed and blinds drawn tightly against the sun putting a smile on his face.  
  
The impact midair shocked the smile from his face. Distantly he heard a crackcrunch. His vision went black. The deep velvet sort of darkness that he knew tended to accompany unconsciousness more often than not.  
  
Dick Grayson dropped from the sky like a stone.  
  
______________   
  
Damian wasn’t particularly fond of asking for help. One only needed to consult history to be intimately aware of that fact.  
  
But there was a chance. A slight chance that he had not thought this particular scenario through to completion before acting. And as such, it was advisable he call for help to eliminate the possibility of a worst case scenario.  
  
Eyes narrowed behind his domino, he’d watched the program sequence terminate and the chamber disengage.   
  
The process was a new one for him to witness in the flesh, as was the cryogenic chamber.   
  
An incident years ago with Doctor Victor Freeze and an inelegantly violent Red Hood had put an end to the villain's crime sprees permanently, and no other villains had ever had the sentimentality or inclination for the type of work Freeze preferred. After Batman had extracted all the information he could about Freeze’s processes, the files had been closed and all the evidence from all his previous crimes had been locked away.  
  
Apparently this decision was rather premature.  
  
As the chamber depressurized, Damian saw the chilled air from inside the chamber hit the air around it and condense visibly. A mechanical grinding and whirring of gears and mechanisms long unused echoed through the room as the front portion of the chamber lifted and slid away.  
  
Stepping out from around the console to get a closer look, Damian was aware of the fact he’d been holding his breath and let it out in a soft woosh. He forced himself to relax his muscles, which were taut and rigid, as if Damian were somehow expecting a massive impact.  
  
To a point he was. He had thought that by now with all the disillusionment and disappointment he’d felt going through this rigmarole, that the tension of the moment would have lost its intensity.   
  
A tightness in his chest and throat and eyes told him differently.   
  
Squeezing his hand into a fist, he concentrated on the sound and feel of the latex finger pads scraping against each other to ground him as the condensation evaporated into the air.  
  
Damian Wayne was not a coward.   
  
And anyone who told him he was as such would regret it vigorously after he was done with them, but he found he needed to take this in increments.   
  
First, he trained his eyes on the floor in front of the chamber. His peripheral vision alerted him to the fact that whatever was inside the chamber was overwhelmingly dark in colour.  
  
Lifting his eyes up slowly he let his gaze slide with what he imagined to be professional detachment over the bottom lip of the chamber, and then up to spot a pair of black boot encased feet.   
  
Black boots were rather common equipment for all manner of employment, both of the legal and illegal variety. No matter how familiar the texture appeared. He moved on.   
  
Upwards, the boots were wrapped around strong calves. The black material had a soft sheen to it that Damian did his best not to compare to his own suit’s altered neoprene fabric.   
  
But his restraint ended at the thighs where his eyes were immediately drawn to blue.  
  
A bright nearly electric blue.  
  
Damian’s eyes raced along the stripes like a live current to the familiar symbol stretched across a familiar chest and flicked up to the face.  
  
To Grayson’s face.  
  
It was just as he’d always remembered it. Thinking back to all the nights when Grayson was gone when he’d worried he might not recognize the slant of the man’s nose or the line of his jaw in a crowd. Damian had memorized every plane in the thoughts that he might have to pick out just one of those features in a group of people. That his chance of finding Grayson might rely completely on whether or not he could pick his individual facial constructs out from a face that was a seeming stranger.  
  
Grayson’s features were classically handsome. It was possibly just one reason why many people had always felt so at ease with the man. Or at least Damian thought so. He had a strong nose and jawline that may have just been plucked off a grecian statue, and a mouth capable of curling into a conspiratorial grin at any moment. His features were inviting to the public at large, which had made it easy for Grayson to be kind and charming. His appearance was a type of manipulation.  
  
But now that manipulative face was slack and silent. Frost from the chamber still clung to the man’s eyelashes, and beads of melted ice clung to his cheeks, nose, eyelashes and chin.  
  
Damian’s hand did not tremble as he lifted a hand to his domino, making sure that the technology wherein was recording the image he saw before him and transmitting it back along their secured network.  
  
“Oracle.” He heard an answering channel of silence open. But the silence was different, softer. He’d come to recognize the difference as an answer. “I need to arrange immediate transport of a- a large cryogenic chamber. I also need medical back up.”  
  
There wasn’t an answer. Which was unusual. Because Oracle was professional and she always confirmed. Damian felt impatience and irritation and what almost seemed like desperation bubble up inside him, and his next words were more of a bark then language.  
  
“Well? Did you hear me?”   
  
Oracle’s voice was calm but for an underlying tremor that Damian recognized all too well.  
  
“B’s ETA is approximately seven minutes. Hold tight.”  
  
Damian hated to wait. He hated to be reliant on others.  
  
So he curled his hands into fists, body tense and spine ramrod straight.  
  
But he waited.   
  
Because he couldn’t do anything else.   
______


	2. Chapter 2

Damian sat in silence with his father. And Grayson.  
  
When he’d arrived, Damian’s father had surveyed the scene. The laboratory. The computer terminals. The cryochamber. Grayson.   
  
He’d surveyed them all with an absence of reaction and expression.   
  
Then he’d delivered Damian his orders, and Damian had hastily complied. He’d pulled a copy of the program from the ancient dusty console wirelessly and sent it to Oracle. The terminal itself wasn’t connected to any sort of grid or network. It was a stand alone that couldn’t be accessed anywhere remotely. But technology was much more advanced than it had been when this was made, so Damian was able to scan and record the device’s algorithms using some standard issue tech.  
  
Damian took a small comfort in that fact. Hours spent pouring over possible networks and connections on the bat computer really had been in vain. He hadn’t missed this clue because it had not been there to find.  
  
Damian had then taken necessary photographs for the reports and files while his father had carefully extricated Grayson’s stiff body from the chamber and on to a medical flatboard, strapping him on securely. Damian made every effort not to notice the unnaturalness of Grayson’s body. The way it was too solid, the way it was as if he was a mere object- a piece of furniture being moved about a room instead of a human being.   
  
Damian did not wait to be asked after completing the tasks set out before him. Instead he stepped forward to pick up the board in tandem with his Father, making sure his hold was secure in the handholds near Grayson’s feet before lifting.   
  
Damian thought he could possibly be imagining things when he he felt a whisper of cold float from Grayson’s feet, ghosting over his forearms. The tendril like wisps of temperature one associated with being in proximity to a very cold object. It wasn’t possible for him to feel such a minute difference in temperature through the advanced neoprene of his suit.  
  
Father of course had come prepared. It was difficult to extricate both Grayson and the chamber but Father had brought with him a complex and portable set of pulleys strong and stable enough to hold first Grayson and the chamber as they were relocated to the main subway tunnel entrance.   
  
Damian had a moment, between carrying Grayson’s frozen body and sliding it in the back of a cold meat truck, a moment in which he wondered if this moment were actually occurring or if it were some sort of lucid and hyper realistic fantasy.   
  
Dick Grayson was no longer the face on the milk carton as it were.   
  
Damian climbed into the front passenger seat of the truck, glancing back once to assure himself that Grayson, and the chamber were both attached securely. They seemed to be.   
  
Damian resisted the urge to squeeze himself into the back regardless. It would not do to handle this situation as if he were a child.  
  
Even if It was always better to be too cautious as opposed to not cautious enough.  
  
Damian had grown. He was on his eighteenth year biologically and he couldn’t help but notice the differences in his size now compared to when he had last been in Grayson’s physical presence.   
  
Damian had taken pride in his physique as it had become apparent he would be taking after his father physically. As he’d aged his chest had broadened, and he’d become taller. He was taller than Drake now.   
  
Damian had to make conscious efforts when formulating his workouts to ascertain that he did not become too bulky. Muscle was ridiculously easy to form with his body type and much of Damian’s specialized training would be wasted if he were to form too much muscle. So he concentrated on staying lean.   
  
His efforts almost seemed like a waste in comparison to Grayson, who was there, merely a few handspans away from him and unconscious. It was obvious that the man had been frozen in that cryochamber in his prime. Grayson’s body was sleek and slender yet muscled in a way Damian had been unable to emulate. It was built strictly for the man’s proclivity towards acrobatics.   
  
Damian thought that things would be different.   
  
Damian had never doubted that he would be successful in his search for Grayson. To believe that he would find the answer took more commitment than he’d originally thought when he’d begun. Damian had had every belief when this odyssey had started that he would discover the answer within a few weeks at most.   
  
After the first year it had become evident that that would not be the case. The second, third and fourth years blurred together in desperation and a savage need to be proven right. The fifth year and onward were when his family gave up. And Damian’s purpose had crystallized in his mind, shining and hard and constant.   
  
Damian hadn’t felt that savage anger bubbling in his chest for a long time now.   
  
But he felt it now, he realized. He felt it now, and strongly. It was clenching his teeth, it was nearly shaking him with it’s intensity.   
  
But Damian did not know where to direct it in the face of this. In the face of the fact that for seven years Grayson was missing and for seven years he’d been here. In Gotham. In _their_ city.   
  
This City had always been theirs. His family’s. They knew its every corner. Its every secret. They claimed it every night they scrambled across her rooftops. They owned it every time they protected her streets and buildings from those who seeked her destruction.   
  
Damian felt betrayed. Which was a foolish thing to feel. A city held no allegiences. She was just cement and brick and mortar and glass. But Damian had fooled himself into thinking, as he grappled and ricocheted off buildings and streetlamps that the City around him was thrumming and alive and darkly pleased with her little birds. He’d created this ridiculous fantasy about Gotham and he’d been wrong. Gotham wasn’t his. It wasn’t theirs. Gotham was not to be trusted. To be placated by her was an obvious sign of weakness.   
  
Blinking slowly, Damian realized he’d unwittingly curled his knees to his chest, compacting his frame as completely as was possible. Damian was not small. He was not a child any longer but the last time he had been was when Grayson had last been with them. Just being near the man and he was slipping into old habits that were of no use any longer.  
  
“Robin.”   
  
Damian glanced up at the address, Father, Batman looked straight ahead as they drove, barely jostling on pitted Gotham streets.  
  
“It’s obvious Nightwing has been in this condition for quite some time. We must prepare ourselves for complications. For the possibility that he sustained damages while cryogenically frozen.”  
  
Damian crossed his arms over his chest. He was not an idiot. “Tch. I am not a child who needs simple things explained to them. Of course it will take time and effort to rehabilitate him.”  
  
The set of his father’s mouth became tense. “I am trying to prepare you Robin, for the possibility that he may not wake up, or if he does, that he will not be the same. Any fluctuations in temperature over the past seven years could have caused any number of issues including a measure of brain damage. You need to be prepared for that possibility.”  
  
Damian tucked his chin against his chest, feeling his body tense with the images brought to mind by his father’s words.   
  
Father was right of course.  
  
He did need to prepare himself for the possibility that even after all these years that finding Grayson would not be enough to save him.   
  
He needed to prepare himself for the possibility that finding Grayson might be more painful than losing him for all these years had been.   
  
And Damian did not have much time in which to prepare himself for that.   
  
They were almost at the Cave.  
  
______  
  
Damian had practiced the art of keeping one’s cool even though his insides were screaming at him.   
  
Still, bringing Grayson’s frigid, frozen body home to the cave and going through the motions of taking proper medical precautions was taking it’s toll on Damian’s iron clad control. The last thing he wanted was to have some sort of ridiculous emotional outburst, so he held on to his expression, one of mild irritation and non-concern. He held it tightly to him, wrapping it around himself, face, muscles, stance, walk, tone- so tightly in fact that he was starting to feel a strain that he would not admit to.  
  
After seven years, Damian would not let the fact that he was not vigilant and in control of his mind, actions and body be the reason that Grayson would not be returned to him. There was already a possibility that his rash actions in the maintenance tunnel had done damage. He would do nothing further to jeopardize the outcome of this situation.  
  
So with his jaw clenched, he followed Father’s orders as they were delivered to him.   
  
He used trauma shears to excise the Nightwing suit from Grayson’s body, cutting through the seams where the suit would be weakest. He cut through gloves and boots, peeling the material back in pieces, like undoing a complex puzzle. Where the suit was too frozen to separate easily, Damian massaged a warmed lubricant patiently between nylex and skin, rubbing and pulling simultaneously until it was freed.  
  
When he was done, the pieces of Grayson’s vigilante persona clumped together in a pile on a nearby table, Damian draped a hypothermia blanket over Grayson. The blanket was meant to lower body temperatures for surgical procedures, but even the cold blanket was warmer than Grayson’s base temperature. It would control the rate at which his temperature returned to normal, allowing them to monitor him carefully at different intervals.   
  
Damian did his best to focus on the work instead of the patient, keeping his attention on his own hands and the tasks he was performing. Grayson was still not- for lack of a better term- thawed sufficiently for an intravenous line to deliver liquids and sustenance, so Damian’s last task was to attach a temperature and pulse monitor.  
  
That done, Damian stepped back to survey his work. Grayson lay on the medical gurney, waxy and still under the hypothermia blanket. The monitors were quietly keeping track of temperature and pulse rate. Since Grayson currently _had_ no pulse, the machine had been reprogrammed to alert them once one emerged.   
  
Damian did his best not to think too much about the fact that Grayson did not have a pulse because his heart was _frozen solid_. It would not help matters, nor would it help Damian’s focus. Instead, he let his gaze travel across the cave, to where Father sat at the computer, typing furiously. Damian could see the various applications that Father was cycling through at a rapid rate blinking up onto the screen to be summarily buried under more applications.   
  
Damian was about to ask if anything else was required of him before stripping off and heading to the showers when his thoughts were interrupted by the guttural roar of a diesel engine tearing apart the peace and quiet of the cave.   
  
Damian’s nose caught the acrid scent of the fuel as Red Hood’s car pulled in next to the Batmobile, his expression twisting into a scowl. The night had been difficult enough as it was.   
  
Damian stepped closer to Grayson’s gurney as Hood pulled himself out of his tasteless car through the open window, fingers catching the release latches on either side of his helmet and pulling it off to toss it onto the seat.  
  
The man looked as he always did. Like he’d been drinking for three days and the art of shaving escaped him.   
  
Hood did not frequent the cave. As far as villains were concerned, Hood and the Batman were still at odds, and as such there was a certain amount of animosity between them. Something that Father generally did not acknowledge, but Damian was not afraid to.  
  
Even so, Hood did not _drop by_. Which meant someone must have informed him that this evening was anything but ordinary.  
  
Damian’s money would be on Oracle. She did not seem to have many boundaries when it came to- well. Anything.   
  
Hood’s low whistle shook Damian from his thoughts and he narrowed his eyes behind his domino, crossing his arms over his chest as he leveled a glare in Hood’s direction.  
  
The man ignored him handily, peeling off his own domino and stuffing into the pocket of his leather jacket. “Holy shit- had to see if Red was pulling a fast one when she crashed my comm-”  Hood was close now, pacing around the gurney with his eyes on Grayson’s unconscious face as if it were a puzzle he was in the midst of solving.  
  
“Gotta admit- didn’t think finding Big Bird would happen like this-” With Hood close like this, Damian could smell the stale whiskey and gunpowder clinging to him like a second skin. It was disgusting.  
  
Damian sneered, stepping closer to place a protective hand on the gurney. “Yes, well if it was left up to you- obviously it would not have happened at all.”  
  
Hood seemed to take the slight in stride, chuckling and shooting Damian a dark smile. “Maybe fucking so- didn’t expect you to turn out to be the obsessive stalker type but I guess that’s a new built in Robin requirement since my tenure.” The man rolled his shoulders as if sorting out a muscle spasm. “Seems to have worked out alright though.”  
  
Damian’s fingers tightened on the gurney as he made effort to forcibly relax his jaw to stop his teeth from grinding together. “I’m sorry Todd, are you making some pathetic effort to compare me with _Drake_?”   
  
“Hey.” Hood shrugged. “If the shoe fucking fits.”  
  
Damian certainly hadn’t missed Hood. The way he spoke grated on his nerves- he was a failure as a Robin and yet somehow still seemed to think he was owed something. Owed something he wasn’t capable of taking himself. He was weak and crass. And the only reason he was here was laying between them.  
  
It seemed Grayson’s penchant for getting the “family together” was still as strong as ever if Hood was willing to crawl out of his hole to grace them with his presence. The only thing missing now was-  
  
Damian swore under his breath as he heard the hydraulics of the hidden but rarely used flight door begin echoing throughout the cave.   
  
He heard his curse mirrored in Hood as they both turned to watch the Red Bird land on the helipad next to the Bat Wing.  
  
Excellent. Exactly what Damian needed to keep a level head in this situation.  
  
 _Drake_.  
  
______  
  
For all the distaste Damian felt for Drake- watching Hood respond to his presence was like watching a switch flip inside the man inextricably.  
  
Hood's broad shoulders tensed and a snarl tugged at the corner of his mouth.  
  
To be fair Damian could not begrudge him this reaction. Drake- while a rare sighting these days- had only become more insufferable as the years had passed.  
  
Watching him now- slithering out from the Red Bird like silk sliding to the floor- Damian had to quell the urge to reach for a weapon.  
  
If Hood was an annoyance- and he _was_ \- Drake was an _enemy_. Everything about him set off otherwise buried alarms in Damian's mind.  
  
Granted, before, years ago, Drake had been as simple an annoyance as Hood was now. But since his return from years of deep cover in the League he had changed into something only Damian seemed to recognize as a real threat.   
  
He saw it in the way Drake moved around a room like smoke, even when there was no need to be invisible. He saw it in the near tics Drake displayed when fighting the urge to respond to one of Grandfather's triggers.  
  
Damian had been in that world, he had been created there and knew inextricably that once it was a part of you there was no forgetting. Only reconditioning.  
  
Only Drake didn't seem _interested_ in reconditioning his behaviour. It had been two years since he returned from his three years with The League and it was always as if he had just left.  
  
Even Drake's uniform had changed to reflect these changes. He'd done away with the domino completely, favouring a mask for the lower portion of his face instead which he tore away from his mouth now as he walked towards Father.  
  
Drake also favoured a specialized type of white out contacts that offered all the technological benefits of the lenses with the added bonus of being utterly terrifying to petty criminals on the street.  
  
And yet. Even with all these points against him, Father _trusted_ him.   
  
Damian had of course made efforts to reason with Father.  
  
All of which had been quickly, and handedly shut down, so Damian watched now, from afar, as Drake and father spoke in low tones and short, clipped words.  
  
When Father turned back to the computer, Drake turned to where Damian and Hood stood near Grayson's gurney, watching silently from afar before seeming to lose some sort of internal struggle and starting towards them.  
  
Hood was braced as if for impact, watching Drake's predatory approach. Damian could not be certain because of Drake's white out contacts, but from the stoop of his shoulders he seemed to be focused on Grayson for the time being.  
  
Damian held his ground, after patrol duties forgotten. There was no way he would leave Grayson- finally recovered after years of searching- in the company of a man who was recently an adder in his grandfather's pit of snakes.  
  
Drake did not seem to take notice of either of their tense and ready states, sliding next to the gurney as if- of all the ridiculous notions- he belonged there.  
  
The moment hung in the air, tense, like a rubber band ready to snap back. Drake's fingers rested on the gurney near Grayson's waxy hand as if contemplating touching it, while his expression remained impassive.  
  
Damian felt a sneer curling his lip, harsh words crawling up his throat and threatening to spill out his mouth. Something, anything to drive Drake away- but Hood beat him to the punch so to speak.  
  
"Jesus christ, Pretender."  
  
Drake's attention immediately swiveled to Todd, the set of his mouth tensing a fraction.  
  
Todd went on. "I know you've got this fucking creepy sideshow kink going on out on the streets-" he paused, gesturing towards Drake's face. "-But do you really need to keep that shit up here too?"  
  
Drake shot Todd a dry smile. "If you're unsettled by the contacts Jason, you need only say so."  
  
Damian's jaw hurt from biting his tongue. Even Drake's speech patterns mirrored those he grew up with.  
  
Damian's hand itched to curl around the hilt of his sword.  
  
As if sensing the near twitch of Damian's fingers, Drake turned his attention to him.  
  
"Bruce tells me that you discovered him in an abandoned maintenance tunnel below the city."  
  
Eyes narrowing, Damian nodded curtly. "I am sure Father already supplied you the details, Drake. You've no reason to confirm them with me."  
  
Drake seemed to take no offense or notice to Damian's harassed tone, going on. "And- you disengaged the chamber." His tone was clinical. "All of Freeze's cryochambers had various inset programming, including a safe thawing protocol."  
  
He spoke like he was reciting words from a textbook on an elementary subject- it irked Damian incessantly.  
  
"However- you disengaged the chamber without the safe thaw- which begs the question, Damian."  
  
Though Damian couldn't see Drake's eyes, he felt them doing their level best to pin him where he stood.  
  
"Why you were even messing with the program in the first place when it's painfully obvious you had no experience with Freeze's technology, or idea what you were doing in the first place?"  
  
Damian bristled. Drake's tone was the same- level and calm, but his words were far from that. They were accusatory and inflammatory.  
  
Squeezing both hands into fists- tight and white knuckled, Damian glared down at Drake. He'd surpassed the man in breadth and height last year- something that had secretly pleased him at the time and continued doing so.  
  
At this particular moment however, it did not give Damian any of the pleasure it normally did.  
  
"If you think you would have done a better job of finding Grayson, I must wonder Drake, why it is you stopped looking nearly five years ago?" Damian sniffed. "Until you can answer that question, refrain from passing judgment on a mission you couldn't be bothered to adhere to."  
  
Drake cocked his head, turning it minutely towards Hood then back to Damian. "You should not have touched the console. You should have called for backup the moment you did not know with one hundred percent certainty how to proceed. That has always been protocol here. You ignored protocol to satisfy your own curiosity. Therefore you shouldn't be so arrogant as to ignore a simple critique of your actions."  
  
"Tch." Damian rolled his shoulders as if to shrug off Drake's accusations. Surely he was in no position to judge _Damian_. Truly it was Drake's habit of behaving as if he were the only one in possession with the correct answers to everything that had irked him first and foremost all the way back when Damian had first taken up his cape. "What does it matter now? It is done Drake. Grayson is here and it is being taken care of. Your criticisms do nothing but inflame an already tense situation."  
  
Drake _twitched_. It was the first visible unplanned reaction Damian had witnessed since the older man had arrived. He watched Drake clench his jaw.  
  
"What does it matter?" His tone was now terse. "What does it _matter_? Instead of running the safe thaw protocol- we have to hope we can thaw him out evenly and quickly enough that there won't be any lasting damage. And even as that stands- he'll be legally dead for at least _three hours_. At which point we have to hope that when we jolt him with 400ccs of electricity his heart actually _starts_!" Drake jabbed an accusing finger towards Damian. "So what I'm saying, is you messed up big time. And if Dick dies or comes out of this a vegetable- that's on _your_ head. So don't look so damned pleased with yourself."  
  
Once again Todd interjected before Damian could gather himself enough for a verbal- or physical attack. And the way Damian could feel his muscles lock up he was rather certain it would have been a physical attack had it not been aborted by Hood.  
  
"Fuck Creepybird- who died and made you the goddamned Batman?” Todd flexed his arms under his jacket like the clothing was suddenly too restricting. “Think lecturing is gonna bring Dickiebird back safe and sound?" He snorted. "Just- fuck. Just stuff it, alright? Shit."  
  
Todd’s comment seemed to do well enough to silence Drake, who shut his mouth with a nearly audible click and set it in a grim, straight line.  
  
However, Drake’s silence extended to all three, and the hum of medical equipment became loud in Damian’s ears. He dropped his gaze down, again fixating on Grayson’s waxy hand. He made careful effort not to look at the man’s face. He had hazarded a glance before, and it had been unsettling to say the least. There was a certain translucent luminescence to living skin that Damian had not come to appreciate enough before. The lack of that quality coupled with Grayson’s features unsettled his stomach in a way he was not prepared to deal with at length.   
  
And suddenly Damian was _weary_. Not just an exhaustion of the body. Something more than that. A resignation. Whatever happened from this point on- Grayson’s disappearance would not be a set of ellipses followed by a question mark. Grayson’s existence had been reaffirmed, rediscovered and redefined. When Damian went out on patrol tomorrow night and the night after that and the night after that- he did not have to allot specific time in his schedule for this task. After seven years it was done.   
  
And Damian was left tired, and not the least bit satisfied with his success.   
  
Like most times in the most important aspect of Damian’s life, the victory falls flat and tastes stale on his tongue.  
  
Because, as Damian has come to learn, there is no such thing as a perfect victory. The taste is only more bitter when served to him in digestible morsels by Drake, of all people.  
  
There’s a curious type of honour Damian adheres to. It’s a mix of priorities, balanced precariously between the lessons of his childhood and adolescence. Both of course tell him to watch Grayson. To stay here and ascertain that Drake does not show his true nature at the most inopportune moment imaginable.   
  
But Damian has been struggling with a concept these last long years, and the concept is the concept of trust. Not for Drake, _good lord no_. But Damian’s trust in his father is solid. And though Todd irritates him on as many levels as he is consciously able to- Damian does not believe the man actually wishes Grayson harm.   
  
And that is _something_.   
  
It is.  
  
“I have things to attend to.” Damian’s voice is a flat rumble in his own ears and his hesitation barely discernable before he steps back from the gurney and Grayson’s mannequin frame. He does not wait for answer nor argument as he turns away and walks purposefully towards the showers.   
  
Going through the motions of stripping off and showering the grit and smell of narrow streets and tar rooftops is not relaxing, nor distracting enough to keep Damian’s mind from whirling with possibilities, skimming the edges of the kind of dark thoughts Damian usually finds it best to avoid altogether for his own sanity.   
  
In his room, Damian takes two tablets with a gulp of water that turn his mind from a field of bright and dark spots to a wash of grey and blissful unconsciousness soon follows.  
  
Damian sleeps, but it is not restful.   
  
He does not dream.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he awakens Damian finds that the world has kept on without him, and though he could not reasonably expect it to grind to a halt for three hours while he slept, he is none the less perturbed that it has done so by so many leaps and bounds without his express permission.

When he awakens Damian finds that the world has kept on without him, and though he could not reasonably expect it to grind to a halt for three hours while he slept, he is none the less perturbed that it has done so by so many leaps and bounds without his express permission.   
  
He is careful to abide by his morning rituals and seeing as it is a Saturday morning and he needn’t worry about attending any classes. He lingers over his breakfast.   
  
Pennyworth, ever astute, seems to have gauged his mood to be somewhere between manic and dejected, else he would not have supplied a breakfast consisting of sharp dates and tangy goat cheese. The nostalgia and simple enjoyment of the meal does calm Damian’s fettered nerves somewhat, but food can only do so much.  
  
After breakfast Damian goes down to the cave. His eyes feel gritty and slightly boiled, which is a common side effect to the pills by his bedside table. That nuisance aside however, the scant hours of sleep have helped with the tension he’s been carrying. Though not gone, his muscles are not aching with the effort of being locked up consistently for hours.   
  
When he enters the Cave, Damian discovers how much things have and can change in a scant few hours.   
  
Grayson’s gurney has been adjusted into a half elevated position, and the man is dressed now in a papery, chalk white medical gown with a blanket tucked around his hips. Gone is the waxy pallor, and as Damian steps closer he can see an underlaying pink tinge to Grayson’s cheeks. He looks more pliant and much less plastic, and a soft pinging dot zips across the medical screen he’s plugged into.   
  
A pulse.  
  
Grayson’s hands are half curled at his sides, fingertips brushing against his thighs through the blanket, and this time when Damian steps forward and ghosts his fingertips across the meat of the man’s thumb, there is warmth beneath his touch.   
  
Whatever has happened while Damian was sleeping has improved the situation considerably. Has improved Grayson’s _condition_ considerably.   
  
Todd sits at the console of his father’s computer, and seems to be the only one in the cave besides his unconscious charge. Boots kicked up on the console, arms stretched out behind his head. When Damian takes notice of him, Todd seems to take notice back and throws a few words over his shoulder as he observes the monitors before him.  
  
“Called in a favour while you were sleeping. Tim figured Big Blue’d do a better, quicker job with the thaw then we could manage. Seems to have turned out alright so far.” Todd’s voice has a forced leviety to it that Damian instinctively mistrusts. “Hasn’t woken up yet, though brain activity’s there.” Hood continues, tone dropping a few octaves. “So all that fuckin’ vegetable talk is out the window for now. Bats seems to think he’ll probably wake up in a few hours.”  
  
Damian swallows the thick taste of shame and worry simultaneously warring on his tongue at Todd’s explanation and instead nods curtly.   
  
He fights down the part of him that is perturbed that no one came to wake him during all of this. Damian has continued to struggle with what rights he does or does not possess as a member of this small, broken family, and he is not certain if he is entitled to the expedience of information about Grayson’s recovery that he so desires.  
  
But should things have gone poorly, and Grayson had well and truly passed on, Damian would not have been witness to it. A hot bright anger flickers within him at the thought. A small, but manageable wildfire. The flames stoked carefully with Damian’s doubt that he has the right to this feeling.  
  
Ignoring the stare Todd is no doubt fixing him with, Damian drags one of the wheeled chairs from the console over to the gurney and settles into it, adjusting his posture for comfort.   
  
He feels more then sees Todd's calculating gaze, feeling the burn of it centered around his sternum. Appraising. Thoughtful.   
  
But whatever Todd sees or thinks he knows, he does not name it aloud.   
  
Damian finds himself inexplicably grateful for such a rare show of candor. He does not want to speak of the knotted ball of unnamed emotion he finds himself having to swallow around.   
  
Perhaps, Damian concedes, Todd may know something about battling one’s inner demons privately and is offering him a dignity he himself was not afforded. Were it Drake sitting here he would not be given such luxury without cost.   
  
So he will allow Todd his occasional observations. He feels no judgement in the scrutiny- or at least no malicious form of judgement.   
  
What Todd may or may not think is hardly of any consequence in light of the monumental battle that Damian assumes keeping his composure in the next few days will be. Though he does not feel entitled to voice his displeasure at not being included in important decisions concerning Grayson’s well being, Damian will not allow himself to be continually put in such a position, and avows to keep close to Grayson’s person until, at the very least, he awakens.  
  
He will not miss anything else.   
  
______  
  
Scent memory is by far the strongest, he remembers. He learned it somewhere, somewhen but the details are lost in a haze of color and sensation he can't sort through just yet.  
  
But the smells.   
  
He registers those _first_.   
  
Something in him that calls itself logic but that he secretly labels _buzzkill_ reminds him there's no way all the things he thinks he is smelling now could actually be here. He smells an acrid resin oil and his mind tells him it’s a circus smell. Barrels of flammable oils for a fire swallower’s trick- the dry tissue paper smell of peanut shells and skins crushed underfoot.   
  
The smells change, like a tableaux of memories without faces parading in and out of his consciousness. _This is your life, whoever you are._  
  
He smells bleach and ammonia and knows to hate it. Places that smell strongly of things like that- constantly- his mind tells him that it’s because fear and pain and tragedies are constantly being scrubbed off the floors and walls of those places.  Those places are for when something is wrong.  
  
And then he smells pollution and smog and cold and crisp and his mind supplies _flying_ and _heroes_ and he finds he doesn’t mind the smells of wet granite and the dry dust of abandoned warehouses. Those smells are always followed by warm smells of food and laughter. Home smells. Smells of belonging and happiness.   
  
Then there’s the smell of blood on the streets and his mind is deft and certain as it whispers _Bludhaven_ and he finds it strange that he’s not afraid.   
  
And then there’s the heavy smell. Like leather and weight and purpose around his face shielding his vision turning it into one focus, one distant mission he’s always reaching for and never able to bring any nearer.   
  
And then there’s the salty ice rime and it’s black and bleak and dark and he knows where the fear really comes from, where it’s made it’s home nestled like a beating thing in his chest.  
  
He reaches up to claw the thing out, to tear it apart in fear and savagery.   
  
______  
  
Dick Grayson opens his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After much thinking and planning I've actually decided to turn this into a series. To do everything I want to do with it it needs specific parts, and for that reason I apologize that the last portion of Chill is so small. But this is where this leg of the journey ends. 
> 
> The next story in the series is already underway and is entitled Bleak. I hope you'll all look forward to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure how long this is going to be. The idea’s just been winging around my head for weeks now and I needed to get it out. Also apologies for any mistakes or inaccuracies. This is unbeta’d and I am woefully rusty in the fanfiction department, despite the sudden inexplicable need my Batfam feels have given me.


End file.
